Recently Read Books

          1984: by George Orwell, this book was originally published in 1949. It is a story about a dystopian society, in which there are three classes: the proletariat masses, the Outer Party and the Inner Party. Everyone in the party is continuously monitored via telescreens in their homes. The book follows a member of the Outer Party, who begins quietly rebelling against the government and Big Brother. He falls in love with a woman who rebells in her own way, and they ask for the help of a rebellious Inner Party member. In addition to the telescreens there are thought police, every bit of history can be edited or revised, even people who disappear in the night removed so completely from documentation that they may as well never have existed. I won't spoil the ending for those of you who haven't read it, but it's a marvelous book, still applicable to what life is becoming today. I DO LOVE BIG BROTHER!
         All Quiet on the Western Front: by Erich Maria Remarque, copyright 1929, remains one of the greatest war novels of all time. Touching in unexpected ways, descriptive in the little things, All Quiet is set during WWI, following the story of a German soldier who loses his friends one by one, and begins to grasp what life truly is just as it begins to slip away. Again, I won't spoil the ending, but I recommend this book too. It has excellent characters, an amazing feeling of reality, even for those of us who have never experienced the horrors and little details of war.
          Night of the Living Trekkies: By: Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall. I loved this book, even though it gave me nightmares for weeks. Granted, I am scared to death of good old fashioned shambling zombies, which this book featured in abundance. Unlike other books and movies, there was a plausible explanation for the zombification, involving outer space and aliens, no less, as a nod to the pervasive Star Trek theme. Pretty much, everyone at a convention is turned into zombies. So, there are people running about in full Trekkie getup, for example a Klingon, an Andorian, the expected Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk, and, explicably (though oddly so) Princess Leia. It was a fun, fast read, with an amazing mixture of horror and science fiction. READ IT!!